Witness says diplomat from Chicago area on foot when killed by blast

Wounded Afghan journalist describes chaotic scene

April 12, 2013|By Jay Price and Rezwan Natiq, McClatchy Newspapers

Anne Smedinghoff (Family photo)

KABUL, Afghanistan — — A suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed a promising young U.S. foreign service officer from the Chicago area and four other Americans last weekend occurred when the group was on foot, not in an armored vehicle, according to a witness and U.S. officials, correcting previous accounts.

The witness, Afghan TV reporter Ahmad Zia Abed, has provided the most detailed description yet of the attack, which took place as the group was trying to visit a school to participate in a book-donation ceremony. Abed said the group got lost during its walk and was returning to its base when the blast occurred.

The Shamshad TV reporter, who was wounded in the attack, said he and a videographer from his station were among about a dozen people, including the foreign service officer, Anne Smedinghoff, 25. American soldiers were escorting them on the 200-yard walk from the local headquarters of the U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Team to what they thought was the school. A man at the gate said they had the wrong place, though, that this was the provincial agriculture institute.

The group retraced its steps to the American base to figure out what to do next, Abed said. The entrance to the base is just a few feet from the street, he said, and just as they reached it, walking more or less in single file, something slammed into his back and he staggered forward. Disoriented, he saw a car wheel roll past him.

"At first I thought that a car had left the road and struck me," he said. "But then I turned around and saw it had been a bomb."

Smedinghoff, who grew up in River Forest and graduated from Fenwick High School in Oak Park, was killed along with three American soldiers and a civilian government contractor.

Abed's account raises new questions about the circumstances that led to the deadliest combat incident in Afghanistan for Americans this year and contradicts what relatives of the victims have said they were initially told — that Smedinghoff and her military escorts had been in an armored vehicle when it was rammed by a suicide vehicle.

The diplomat's father, Tom Smedinghoff, told the Chicago Tribune on Sunday: "She was in a convoy. ... Somebody with a car or a truck laden with explosives rammed into her vehicle or somebody close and detonated and killed everybody."

But State Department official Patrick Ventrell said Wednesday that Smedinghoff's group "was moving on foot a short distance to a school, wearing personal protection gear and under escort of U.S. soldiers."

Being on foot would have made the group particularly vulnerable to the effects of the explosion. Abed was interviewed Wednesday at his home in Kabul, where he was recovering from surgery to remove chunks of the suicide vehicle from his left hand and the back of his right knee.

Improvised bombs sometimes aren't powerful enough to pierce an armored vehicle. Or they're designed or built so poorly or triggered in such a way that they don't result in serious casualties. When they explode, though, anyone on foot nearby is most at risk. That was true in this case.

Local officials said the bomber was parked outside a nearby hospital, waiting for the provincial governor to drive by on his way to the school. As the governor's convoy passed, the bomb went off. While some in the governor's convoy were wounded, no one was killed. The only Afghan to die in the blast was a doctor, also on foot, who was outside the hospital.

Abed said he was near the front of the group, closer to the U.S. base and farther from the road than most in the group were. That saved his life. Those behind him took the worst of the blast. Among them was Smedinghoff. Abed said he was certain she was on foot.

The immediate aftermath of the blast was chaotic, Abed said. He thinks he heard a second blast — local officials have said an attacker detonated a suicide vest — before he staggered a few more steps, still not feeling any pain.

"When I moved toward the base, everywhere was full of dust and smoke and I couldn't see anywhere, and people were screaming and most of them injured and screaming so loudly," he said. "I just at a glance could manage to see the vehicles of the governor on the other side.

"I saw some of the people hurt around me but I didn't see all of them, because I was so sad and shocked and couldn't know what to do. I only saw a few yelling for help, but I couldn't see much."

An American soldier yelled at Abed to get down, so he dropped to the ground. Seconds later another soldier helped him find better cover behind a mound of sand. Then he and the other wounded were rapidly moved inside the base.

His videographer, who had been closer to the bomb, took shrapnel in his legs and arms, and their camera and tripod were destroyed.

The worst wounded were put in one room, and those who weren't critical cases, such as the two TV journalists, in another. He said he watched as Americans pulled white cloths over the dead, including Smedinghoff.

"I met them alive, and then I saw their bodies," he said, suddenly looking away. "I can't forget them now, and I will never forget them."

After U.S. medics stopped the bleeding from his wounds and bandaged them, an ambulance took Abed, the videographer and another wounded Afghan to a local hospital, where a surgeon removed the shrapnel.

Later, U.S. aircraft brought him back to Kabul.

He said he was struggling with his memory. "It's like the only thing I remember is that incident," he said. "I can't concentrate, and I always think about the screaming of people and those who were killed around me."